After questioning Mumias East MP Peter Kalerwa Salasya regarding allegations of issuing death threats to a judicial officer, the police have granted him Sh20,000 in cash bail.
Kakamega Resident Magistrate Gladys Kiama Nashipai filed a complaint last week, leading to the police summoning Salasya to provide a statement on the matter.
Officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) disclosed that the MP will be brought to court after they share his statement with the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
Deputy DCIO Lucy Wamutiro, who conducted the interrogation, stated that Salasya was cooperative during the process.
“We did not encounter any difficulties in extracting the information we wanted from him. We equally recorded the statement from the magistrate and will be moving the case to the prosecutor for appropriate charges,” she said.
According to the police, Salasya is accused of making threatening phone calls and sending threatening text messages to the magistrate, who issued a verdict against he MP on November 27 at the Small Claims Court (SCC). He allegedly made the threats around 1 pm on the same day.
Later at 9 pm, he purportedly posted content on his Facebook page that could be construed as “good fodder for defamatory material.”
In her judgment, Nashipai had ordered Salasya to settle a debt of Sh500,000 owed to his creditor, Robert Lutta.
The MP’s release on police bail comes a month after he was reported at the same station by lawyer Edwin Wafula for assault.
Wafula, who represented Lutta in the SCC case, alleged in his report (OB No. 02/11/2023) that MP Salasya, along with two of his aides (including a policeman), assaulted him at a hotel in Kakamega on November 2.
“It was not until other revelers and the hotel’s management intervened that the MP and his aides fled,” said Wafula.
The lawyer submitted a civil case against Salasya at the Kakamega Law Courts on November 3, seeking general and punitive damages for the alleged use of ‘degrading’ language aimed at harming Wafula’s reputation.
“The plaintiff (Wafula) avers that on November 2, 2023, at around 6 pm, he went to an establishment within Kakamega Town, Vovo, in the company of friends to have coffee when Salasya confronted him and verbally started hurling insults at him in Swahili,” reads his court papers filed by lawyer Derek Mango.
The lawyer, who is also seeking reimbursement for the case’s expenses, asserted that the MP continued insulting him, leading the restaurant’s management to request him to leave for disrupting the peace.
Wafula recounted that around 7.30 pm on November 2, he and his friends opted to move to another restaurant, Vault, within Kakamega town. However, the MP allegedly followed him there and continued to make defamatory remarks, including Swahili insults.
The lawyer stated in his affidavit that he was profoundly disturbed by the damaging implications of the words that tarnished his reputation. Faced with no alternative, he initiated legal action against the MP, who, as of yet, has not filed a defense after being served with court papers.
